How to get up from the floor (video)

Here is a good video on the right way to get up from the floor when the enemy is up.

It’s a three and a half minute clip so it obviously can’t cover everything i.e. there is no mention of what to do should the enemy try to move around the kicking feet, what to do if there is more than one enemy, how to deal with stamps from the side etc. As I say, it’s only 3:30 long so it can’t cover all issues … but I mention this before someone critiques the video for not covering these other things :-)

As a guide to the core motion used to get up smoothly such that your head is away from the enemy I think it’s very well done. Simple, clear and to the point.

It's an interesting little video. I teach overlapping principles of using the legs to keep the other person back where possible, with the big exception that we train to take the weight on the forearms and never on the hands (we don't put our hands on the ground at all if we can avoid it) and tuck the legs under the body to get up so as to keep the hands directly in front of the face.

It is not all that explicit about it in the video but I like the timing involved of using the rebound from the kick to stand up. That way you can be as sure as it is possible to be that the opponent won't be bearing down on you as you try to stand.

I did Tim Cartmell's "groundproofing" (BJJ and Chinese Martial arts guy) a bit at a seminar with one of his students years ago..it was similar to this, with the addition of a bunch of ways of using the guard to get away, buck and roll to disengage etc. He taught the same principle for getting up, with the 'floating' kick and such, but if I recall, he made a big dealof the non posting hand making a kind of elbow shield around the head as you get up, rather than the peekabo gaurd thing. I thought it was an excellent set of "groundfighting" for those with no interest in actually fighting on the ground. The drills were fun, basically have someone move around you trying to kick you are you job is, predictably to keep them away and get up.

I don't dispute this method, which I first saw from the Inosanto people. I never heard a name for it, so I just teach it as a 'post up'. However, it's my own belief that it's important to both 'add to the outcomes' (i.e. that the practiced outcome is not just recovering a standing guard); and, like anything , ultimately to train it in a 'live' context.
The issue for me is that there is a BIIIIG moment between the kick and the get up and you are grossly vulnerable during that brief space-- head down, wide base, moving backwards, with virtually no defensive coverage. So what happens a lot in live action training (at least at our place) is of course that that is the precise moment when the other guy will kick or rush in with a flurry which 'almost always' works to knock you right back on your can.
Accordingly, I spend a lot of time looking at attacking scenarios from the butt (i.e. leg entanglements) or forward tackles... i.e. a forward knee bar (Binti-houn), or basic double /single, or even sac throws from that half crouched position where he is most likely to bull in. Meaning: I prefer to 'preface' this get-up with something that at least off-balances or that knocks the other guy down) before attempting it; or I recognize that on my way up there is about an 80% chance that he will be closing (and not just waiting politely for me to stand), so I kind of 'half post' and then convert to a forward shoot.
Of course, since this is theoretically 'for the street', if your kick is effective, ideally, he may have a blown knee or shin. But, as a point of dojo practicum, personally, I frequently add these elements.
Like someone said, its a short video that can't cover all scenarios, so my issue is more that there aren't really any 'good' ways to get up. Reverse Ninja Hand Spring maybe. :-)
@ Zach, I also like the Cartmell stuff and teach some similar tactics for our Assymetric core although I don't have any personal experience beyond having seen his groundproofing DVD. Also some of Suzanne Luna Espinoza's silat takedowns work great for this position.

The issue for me is that there is a BIIIIG moment between the kick and the get up and you are grossly vulnerable during that brief space-- head down, wide base, moving backwards, with virtually no defensive coverage. So what happens a lot in live action training (at least at our place) is of course that that is the precise moment when the other guy will kick or rush in with a flurry which 'almost always' works to knock you right back on your can.

It's not perfect, but I don't know of any better way.

What I practice is that if you fail to complete the stand up before uke reaches you, you drop back to guard and ultimately try again. Against one attacker, the supine guard is relatively safe. Of course whne you add in multipel attackers it isn't, hence the need to recover feet quickly. We also cover leg entanglements and switching from this movement to what amounts to ko uchi guruma but in my experience (Jujitsu, but not BJJ) these are low percentage methods compared to the one described here.

I am a huge fan of Stephan Kesting. He is like Iain in that he has a great eye for detail and consistently excellent analysis.

miket wrote:

The issue for me is that there is a BIIIIG moment between the kick and the get up and you are grossly vulnerable during that brief space-- head down, wide base, moving backwards, with virtually no defensive coverage. So what happens a lot in live action training (at least at our place) is of course that that is the precise moment when the other guy will kick or rush in with a flurry which 'almost always' works to knock you right back on your can.

I totally agree with you on this, as I have encountered the same problem in my own training. I now rely heavily on that half-post/forward shoot method you are describing (or whatever variation of it works in the situation). I just thought I would share some of my own experiences on this technique.

Several years ago, I went through a phase where I focused almost all of my energy on submission wrestling. I would still do MMA classes and self-protection classes at our gym, but I really only had fun with the wrestling. During this time, I focused a lot of effort on becoming good with the X-guard position.

(For those of you who are not familiar with the X-guard, it is essentially a dynamic collection of positions where you end up underneath a standing opponent, controlling his far leg/hip with both of your legs and using your arm/head to trap his closer foot.)

After I developed a reliable X-guard game, I began to encounter issues in both the MMA and the self-protection classes. If the resistance level were low or my opponent was unskilled, I could still pull off the regular BJJ stand-up technique from the video. But if I were going at a high level of resistance against one of my regular training partners, I would almost always have to pull X-Guard. It became unbelievably frustrating. The coach/instructor would tell me that I was not allowed to pull X-guard in a match. I would struggle to pull off the stand-up technique for as long as I could until I was really stressed, and then I would revert to X-guard. The X-guard almost always worked and the stand-up rarely did.

The reason I brought up this story is because my training partners and I were unconsciously pulling our competitive training into our self-protection training. Yes, I was making a consistent error by ALWAYS relying on the X-guard. But my opponent was also conditioning me to do this by gaming me and trying to capitalize on the moment I was going to stand-up. So he would hang back until he thought I was going to try and come to my feet, then he would jump in for the strike. (And of course I would counter-feint him by pretending to stand-up so that I could draw him closer for X-guard.)

This is fine in MMA but I think for self-protection training your partner really needs to avoid playing on trained responses. (So here I am just thinking of this article by Iain: http://iainabernethy.co.uk/article/how-spar-street-part-2-iain-abernethy) When the opponent KNOWS that you are going to use this technique to stand-up, it is obviously effective for him to just hang back and wait for it to happen. But this could have the downside of conditioning you to feel like the technique is ineffective.

I am not sure if I really defeated my X-guard habit. I enjoyed some success with the X-guard during MMA sessions against my training partners, so perhaps they just became more cautious around me when I am in that position. Once they started to give me more space, I was able to get more use out of the stand-up technique. Granted, I use the word “success” with reservation, as this position is a bad place to be. Also, I have been away from training for a while, so in the downtime the X-guard might have returned to me.

Having said that, I now use the half-post/forward shot method a lot as well. I think it is useful across a wide portion of the martial map, since it is relatively high percentage in both MMA sparring and in self-protection training. In fact, it might be better all-around, if only because great training partners are hard to come by; some of us just have to make do with what we have, and that might be a guy who is thinking only MMA/grappling.

My thoughts in a nutshell: the stand-up technique from the video is great (and should probably be the default), but it may not work if your opponent is treating the self-protection sparring like MMA/submission wrestling sparring. The half-post/forward shot method is a good solution for this problem (IMHO).

Have not seen the groundproofing video and I am unfortunately unfamiliar with a lot of methods from Silat, but it does sound interesting. @Tau, I also really like the idea of starting the exercise at a distance and then decreasing from there. I think that drill would have solved my X-guard problem pretty quickly.

In a world where there is no commonly used method of getting up, this stand up method sets a high standard. The kick is similar to just kicking to keep the opponent away for a moment so you can get up and the "high blocking" arm begins to help block punches. I like this method and find that getting your "kicking" leg back -as far as possible-before standing creates the base you need to not get bowled over in a second attack. Many people just place the leg under their center point under their butt, but this is not effective. And for me it is actually a very comfortable way to stand after being seated during class! Head down, wide base, moving back? I don't see that here. Your right leg remains in the same spot posted on the ground, your head is looking into the chest of the opponent and the wide base helps you stop from being bull tackled and dropped back on the ground. Of course we all see different pros and cons and the method is a great start to build on.

I have to admit I have never had someone really come at me withou some hesitation when drilling this, it's always just sort assumed it is a ranged game..which is probably the opposite of what would really happen lol. I agree it seems quite vulnerable during the standup, I almost would favor something like a shiver or the elbow. Whatever the case this thread has got me interested in playing with this more as I feel lacking...thanks guys!

I took some footage on Saturday of my students (and yes I'm in it making mistakes too until my heart rate got so high I had to stop - I've a heart condition) doing a medium intensity ground drill.

Here's the unedited string of clips:

This is much messier than our slow motion 'defending against kicks on the ground' drill, and often rolled (sorry) straight into our 'ground and pound' drills. One thing that is very obvious once you do this form of training is that people standing use their feet differently if they are wearing footwear compared to being bare foot.

I should perhaps add to this that we don't get up very much! Although that was technically part of the drill, I wanted to put pressure on which meant the next attack coming in before the person had a chance to get up most of the time.